“Okay, I’m in,” Grace whispered, finally. “This place is huge. I’m tracking mud everywhere.”
“We’ll throw the shoes out later. Just keep your gloves on and find something valuable. Start from upstairs. Bedrooms and shit.”
“It smells in here. It smells like something really spoiled.”
I could hear her coughing.
“Grace.”
“It’s okay. Hold on.”
Click. She hung up again.
I wished I’d gone to the bathroom before leaving. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten. It made the moments before the next call stretch on forever. I wondered if this was how the old man had felt that first day I noticed him, so uncomfortable that he was willing to risk his elderly dignity in exchange for relief.
At last, another vibration from the phone.
“It’s really dark.”
“Use the light if you have to. But hurry.”
“I wish you could see these paintings of people everywhere. They look really old, like from George Washington days. Probably worth a fortune.”
“I don't think you can get those through the hatch, baby. Don’t waste time.”
The dog was sniffing at a street sign and the old man stopped walking. I turned and wandered around the corner of an apartment building, keeping watch on the man out of the corner of my eye. The dog began to relieve itself and I envied the little bastard.
“The bedrooms don’t have shit,” she whispered. “I’m going to the room at the end of the hall. Hold on.”
A long pause. Quiet, white noise from the phone, then:
“Whoa, man. This place is weird.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not a typical old guy’s place. It’s all black and... There are weird symbols all over the walls. Like all over the place. Even on the floor. This guy’s a total metal head. Or super Jewish or something…”“Just see if there are any jewelry boxes.”
“There’s a box in the middle of the room, like on a little pedestal,” she whispered. “Hold on, I gotta use the light. It’s dark.”
The dog finished his business and turned, pawing at the snow to cover his mess. The old man stared down at his pet, still as a statue.
Grace again, in a whisper:
“It’s not even locked. Big wooden box.”
I heard a heavy creak from the phone. Then a sudden blast of air, like she’d crossed through a wind tunnel. Clattering sounds. I could tell the phone had fallen to the floor, and Grace’s voice became distant.
“Holy shit,” she said.
“What is it? Hey!”
She fumbled with the phone.
“Some kind of—I can’t believe this. It’s like a giant ruby or something. Or an emerald? I don’t understand the color. It’s like… it’s like... ohmygod...”
Down the street, the old man suddenly snapped his head to the side. He seemed to be listening to the air, his entire body rigid and at attention.
“Just grab it and get out of there,” I said.
“It’s like it’s glowing or something,” Grace whispered. “It’s like there’s something moving inside of it.”
“Grace, seriously. Just pinch it and let’s go.”
“What the fuck, man…?” Now she was frightened. “It’s like it’s looking at me. I don’t like this. I don’t like this.”
“What’s looking at you? Grace?”
A meaty crackling sound suddenly pierced the winter air—a bundle of bones snapping in two—and down the street, the old man dropped to all fours, tense like a great cat. Before I could even process what I was seeing, he launched himself across the snow and sped away between houses, legs over arms, lightning-fast. I reeled and blinked my eyes, trying to stop what could only be a hallucination, but the old man was history, leaving a settling cloud of glistening snow in his wake.
The Doberman unleashed a painful howl, ran around in a quick circle and then galloped away in the trail of its master.
Grace screamed through the phone.
“It’s in my fucking head! It’s in my fucking head!”
“Grace! Get out of there! He's coming home!” I broke into a run, shouting into the phone. “Get out of there now! Grace! GRACE!”
But the phone was already dead.
II.
In the hospital, I had what the chart called “frequent breaks with reality.” I imagined I was a toddler in the deep end of a pool, paddling for the edge while an invisible hand tried to force my head under water. My legs pistoned desperately, but I was too weak and felt the life draining from my chest. I felt absolute panic. While under these spells, I’d lifted and swung my IV pole at the other patients so many times that the nurses started weighing the base of it down with sandbags. The reality of the long hospital room and the reality of the pool were indistinguishable; I wanted out of both at the same time and my body did the work it needed to do. I experienced it and watched it, but I had no part in the decision-making.
Up the hills, down the hills—cold sweat clung to my body as I sprinted under the glaring winter sun to the old man’s house. When I finally arrived in McClellan Heights, I saw that our car was gone, or at least no longer parked in the spot we’d agreed on. I slowed my pace as I turned onto the old man’s street, calling Grace’s phone once again but getting nothing. The muffled sound of a loud, deep voice seemed to be coming from the man’s house—some sort of shouting, or chanting. Was he shouting at my girl? How had he moved so fast? Was I still in the hospital, even now?
I stopped in front of the house and dialed the phone again, panting. A small bzzzzhh shot back from the man’s yard. I crossed to the sound and saw it there in the snow. Grace’s phone.
She’d made it out.
The shouting sounds from inside had stopped. Getting to my feet, I saw the old man wrench a curtain aside in the house’s top window and stare down at me. His expression was obscured by the sun’s reflection, but the sight of him filled me with rage. I thought about pissing on his lawn right in front of him, just to say fuck you—to let him know who I was. But I realized in that moment that my jeans were already soaked. I’d lost it completely on the run there, like an out-of-control child. I had to get home.
I vomited twice on the way back, nervous about Grace, sick with exertion and sure that a squad car would be driving up at any moment to stop me. What seemed like twenty years later, I made it to our house. The car was parked on the street. Tears welled in my eyes and I jogged inside.
“Grace?” No response. I hurried toward the bedroom.
“Grace?”
She was there, hanging by her scarf from the ceiling fan, the tips of her boots touching the floor and her knees bent, long black hair dangling from her head. A notebook was open on the ground, her limp arms extending toward it.
Touching her, hoisting her up and brushing the hair back from her face, I knew she was dead. No amount of kissing, no amount of crying, no amount of denial would make it not true. Clutching her by the waist with one arm, I tried to untie the scarf but it was too knotted up, and when I had to release her again to go at it with both hands, the way she swung lifelessly back into place made my heart plummet into my stomach.
Once on the ground, I untied the other end from her tiny neck and pulled her to me. Guys in the service had killed themselves this way, tying their throats to bed frames and leaning forward to choke out. It took enormous force of will, to make your body accept death. Grace’s feet had been touching the floor. She could’ve stopped herself from dying. But she hadn’t.
I lifted the notebook. The writing was jagged and hasty, but it belonged to Grace:
i'm sorry. you wont understand why but i cant be alive. ive seen what it will do. i love you but i cant look at you again or you might know it two. the burning eye is in my head even now like im sick with it. i hid the thing. i covered it blinded it stole it and hid it - i wont think or write where. its all i couldo to stop it. its seen me once and may come in the dark but it will never know the hi
ding place. its not ur fault. go away if u can. i love you forever. get away.
That was all. It made no sense. The invisible hand was pushing me under water once again and I was drowning. I was drowning.
The sound of the front door woke me. It was dark outside. I was crumbled on the floor with Grace, a string of drool leading from my mouth to her sleeve. I lowered her head to the floor and sat up, wiping at my face. Listening.
There were people in the living room, but nobody was calling out to me. Just footsteps on the floorboards, cautious, heavy. Couldn’t be police. My joints cracked as I pushed myself to a crouching position and the footsteps stopped, a creak and then another creak. There were two men. I pictured their positions in the room. I’d been trained for this. Whoever they were, I was going to kill them.
When the footsteps started again, I scrambled to the wall, unplugging all of the cords and powering down the blazing hot space heaters. The men sensed me as well and hustled toward the bedroom. I pulled the comforter from the mattress and used it to lift the heaviest heater, a blocky industrial relic with a glowing metal grill. I flattened myself against the wall, and as the first man stepped into the doorframe, I swung around and slammed the heater into his face, throwing the comforter over him at the same time and using my weight to force his bulky body to the ground.
I heard his flesh sizzle as we fell, accompanied by hog-like shrieks from beneath the blanket. I looked up to clock the other intruder, a skinny guy in a black polo and ski mask. He was pulling a gun from his belt but had no coordination. Before he could level the thing at me I pushed off from his friend and barreled toward him. My shoulder caught him in the midsection and forced him into the wall with a satisfying oof, the gun dropping out of his hand and clattering across the floor.
His insect arms flailed as I grappled him, spinning him away from the wall and throwing him down. He fell flat on his back and I pounded the side of my hand into his ear, seeing the other man continue to struggle under the blanket in my periphery. With both men down, I took the chance to roll across the floor and grab the handgun, a 1911 with a well-worn grip.
But the thin man wasn’t staying put. He leaped onto my back and wrapped his hands around my face, trying to get his bony fingers into my eyes. He was strong for a skinny guy but had no close quarters smarts, and in seconds I had him on his back again, pushing my forearm into his throat to hold him down. With my gun-hand, I pulled his ski mask away and screamed into his face, but my voice stopped short when his features became clear.
The man had no nose. A cheek was missing, revealing only bony teeth and a tongue rolling around like a burrowing worm. The skin around his eyes was jagged and worn away, and the eyeballs flashed back and forth in a revolting panic. Fear overcame me like electric shocks against the skin, involuntary panic in the face of disfigurement. It wasn’t human.
The sound of a breaking window stunned me back to life, and I saw that the big man was gone.
“Glaaaaaghh...” The thing beneath me wailed, choking. The sound of it was infuriating. I looked down into its glistening sick eyes and felt no pity. I crammed the ski mask into its mouth to shut it up, pressed the muzzle against the fabric, and blew its fucking head off.
Chalky bits of skull flew around the room and I went deaf for a minute. Didn’t matter.
I ran to the bedroom. The window was broken out. Grace’s body was gone. The big man was gone. A wig was lying on the floor like road kill.
Flying back through the living room, I reached the front door in time to see a hearse pulling away from the curb, hasty and sloppy, the big man behind the wheel. I was halfway through the door before I remembered car keys and spun back into the living room.
As I ripped through Grace’s purse to find what I needed, I saw the body of the skinny man still rolling and crawling around on the floor, headless but alive. Reality had broken forever, and I was living here now, wherever here was. It didn’t matter anymore. I only wished I had time to kill the man again.
The hearse driver tried to weave his way through the neighborhoods, but he should’ve chosen busy streets if he’d wanted to lose me. Traffic kills a chase, but in neighborhoods there’s space to move. I can find you.
I caught him speeding down an alleyway behind a Sizzler, headed for the old man’s place just like I thought he’d be. He knew he was fucked as soon as he saw me squeal to a stop at the end of the alley, cutting off his exit. He hit the brakes, and in that moment we got a good look at each other. The marks of the heating grill were stamped across his face, another half-completed mug right out of Fangoria. This one had a nose and cheeks, but portions of his head were missing and his exposed brain rested within a crown of jagged skull fragments, pink and naked. The wig had been his.
The death-wagon flew into reverse and I maneuvered to bear down on it. I sped over the pockmarked pavement toward the car’s nose, but Grillface backed out onto the street and threw it into drive before I could mash him. Punching the gas, I managed to clip his rear bumper. The hearse fishtailed on the slushy road, now pointing at the Sizzler parking lot. Grillface hopped the curb and flew through the lot, almost hitting an old lady and sending two teenage girls diving into the bushes. I skidded out, punched the gas again and popped over the curb, racing off after the long black car as it blasted onto the restaurant-lined avenue. It was the fastest goddamn funeral procession in history.
Once on the open road, I hauled ass to his tail lights, then swung into the left lane and sped up before Grillface could block me. I wanted to point my gun at the motherfucker’s head, but as soon as I pulled alongside of him I saw that he had the same idea, the muzzle of a sawed-off shotgun resting in the crook of his arm, pointing through the driver’s open window. The gun discharged before I could even think about shooting back, and glass blasted into the car from the windows on both sides of me, slicing into my face, cutting into my ear-drums and making me blind.
I tried to hold the wheel steady, but when I opened my eyes I saw that I’d drifted into the opposite lane. A teenager flying down the road on his bicycle threw up his hands, his mouth making a perfect O shape that would’ve been comical in any other situation. Yanking the lever for the emergency break and spinning the wheel, I tried to avoid the kid but felt the car lifting off of the ground. Then chaos erupted. This time I felt everything. I felt my nose hit the wheel twice in two quick bounces, smashing one side and then the other. The ceiling crashed down on my head like a steel anvil, pushing it to the side and stretching the muscles in my neck to the breaking point. Finally, something in my back gave way with a loud pop and numbness flooded my body like novocaine.
In a moment, all was still. The world was upside-down and rivulets of a thick warm liquid were crawling up my face. Through the window, a bicycle wheel was spinning and I saw the teenager crawling across the pavement, dazed. As I started to lose focus, I imagined I was back in Kunar. The boy was Gustavo, and he was alive. I wanted to laugh. It had all been a nightmare. My friend was alive.
And then everything faded away.
When the old man looked at me this time, he was inches away from my face.
“Tell me where it is.” His voice was deep and slimy. “I know that you’ve hidden it. You and that mulatto whore.”
I wasn’t sure when I’d woken up or how long I’d been that way. I felt a total disconnection from my body, and could only stare at the old man in a daze. His skin was hairless and smooth, as if his jowls and wrinkles were sculpted rather than earned through long life. The spittle in one corner of his mouth foamed up more and more as he interrogated me until his tongue finally slid out to snatch it. But it wasn’t a tongue. It was a more like a bundle of pink tubes, all squirming together to imitate a tongue.
“I will give you one chance to tell me. If you do not, you will live in one of my boxes underground, forever starving. But if you tell me now, I will give you relief.”
Pain shot through my leg to my groin and exploded into a million stabbing clusters. I screamed so high an
d so loud that the echoes bouncing off of the walls sounded like a squad of witches buzzing a battlefield. The old man turned away, holding his ears, and I saw Grillface remove a long, long needle from the base of my foot. His exposed brain was covered by a black stocking cap.
Suddenly, everything was sharp again. I was naked, strapped to a table in a small, antiseptic room, the walls a thick white marble, some kind of furnace in the corner. The old man spoke to me, the spoiled air in his mouth spilling out like oil.
“All I have to do is say the words and you’ll be free. Tell me. Where is it?”
“I don’t know.” My voice was hoarse, strange.
He closed his mouth and stepped back, his expression blank.
“Put him in the box and I’ll call up the girl.”
They worked together to undo the straps and Grillface lifted me in his arms. I ordered my body to attack him but it only trembled, seized by the paralysis of a nightmare. He shook his head at me and stepped toward the room’s large, industrial door, throwing me over his shoulder so he could work the handle. None of my insides felt right. I was a ghost in a human suit.
He opened the door and I managed to lift my head a bit, just enough to glimpse the old man pick up a rusty Folgers can and pour what looked like ashes onto the table.
The door slammed shut.
Now we were in a cellar, probably below the old man’s house. It reeked of death, a smell of rot that was almost physical. The old man’s voice erupted into chants behind the closed door, stifled but audible. I felt myself being carried across the room, and then the world rolled over as I was dumped into a box.
It was a tight space, made of aluminum, probably a modified deep freeze. My body was folded in half, ass down, legs up, my knees facing my eyes and my busted up arms folded in between. Grillface turned away for a moment and then turned back with a padlock in his hand, looking down at me. He paused as he reached up to close the lid, staring down with an almost-human expression. Was it pity?
Shotguns v. Cthulhu Page 15